A fisherman’s name was Pip.
He owned a beautiful ship.
He wasn’t illegal,
He caught nary a seagull.
Until today. Oh Pip.
The boat rocked with every rolling current
As I slowly fed my net into the swirling aqua sea.
I watched as the floats drifted off,
Knowing the next time I would touch them,
I would be hauling hundreds of shrimp onto this deck.
I leaned against the cabin window,
Arms crossed.
I thought of my beautiful family:
My wife and son.
This was for them.
A large mob of gulls swarmed around the boat:
There must have been something in the water.
Spitting tobacco overboard, I began to pull in the net.
Inch by inch,
Foot by foot.
It was too late.
She was already gone.
A dead Vaquita lay mangled in the mesh,
Lifeless and dripping in blood from the lacerations.
I sat down on the deck and began to cry.
In bamboo forests Pandas dwell.
They’re shy and hidden, but we know them well.
Anglerfish live undersea in glory.
They’re rarely seen, but strangely, same story.
Why don’t people know about the Vaquita?
Because few of us have gotten to meet ‘er.
The fact is, though, we’ll never get to see one
Unless we immediately start to save ’em.
Let’s not wait another night:
Click the link to Cetos, on the right.→
A vision, a ghost.
The Vaquita is hidden,
Never to be found.
Or is that silver fog that
Frequents the water’s surface
A lone Vaquita?
Surely it cannot be so.
For years ago we
Wiped the species from the Earth.
But now it is too late. Or is it?
A beautiful creature dived effortlessly. From great heights it just kept lowering more.
No one predicted quiet, rare, small cetaceans, until Vaquita were exposed yearz ago. 🙂
The Vaquita has a reason to fret:
When the Mexican sun begins to bake,
Fisherman fish, for their family’s sake.
Out, their nets (to catch fish and shrimp) are set.
When our friends get trapped, their matches they’ve met,
They can’t escape, it’s not a piece of cake.
The Vaquita then dies; its life God takes.
Again, Vaquita are conquered by net.
There is an answer. We don’t have to seek.
If we get the nets out of the water
Vaquita’ll thrive with our sons and daughters.
Their warbles will be as smooth as honey.
Our children’ll see the Vaquita, so meek,
But all we need is a lot more money.
Vaquita
Timid, Grey
Echolocate, Dive, Swim
Vaquita need your help.
Endangered
*I am excited to say I am getting my non-Vaquita poem, The Egg, published in a poetry book! I recommend checking out the website, http://www.poeticpower.com/. You can read the poem below:
The Egg
An egg was on the dunes of the lovely beaches of St. June’s.
One fine day the egg had split, a tiny beak popped out a bit,
Out came a little gull, of which species, I can’t recall.
Covered with fluff, not very tough,
The chick was rather pathetic.
Feathers bold, feathers long, the mother was firm and strong,
And to the most extent, athletic.
As the years passed, the chick grew too.
The sun at full blast, he flew and flew.
He flew and flew where blue met blue.
Salt whipping at his face,
He raced and raced and raced and raced.
The beautiful gull had crossed the sea
And found a spot beneath a tree.
He got a mate, not a second late,
On the lovely beaches of Regg.
They dug a ditch, the female flinched.
And then she laid an egg.
Vaquita are:
Acrobatic swimmers
Quiet
Underwater Pandas
Innocent yet killed
Timid and shy
Almost gone
The water ripples.
A Vaquita breaks the surf:
The symbol of hope.
There once was a tiny porpoise
That was the opposite of enormous.
Grey on the sides,
Black mouth and eyes,
With a song as nice as a chorus.
V-log 